


Rainbow

by SmashingTeacups



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Faith storyline, Moodboard Oneshot, Rainbow Baby, Stillbirth, pregnancy loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmashingTeacups/pseuds/SmashingTeacups
Summary: Jamie and Claire find out they are expecting again after their first pregnancy ends in a traumatic loss.Modern day A/U in which Jamie and Claire get to go through pregnancy together, grieve together, and parent together.Oneshot for the moodboard challenge on tumblr
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Comments: 53
Kudos: 459





	Rainbow

**Author's Note:**

> _A/N: Oh I know, leave it to me to take a perfectly fluffy, happy moodboard and stick a knife in it! But I think the loss of their first child so deeply informs Claire and Jamie's relationship, and was interested in exploring it in a modern setting, but also giving them the space to grieve TOGETHER that they didn't have in canon, plus, you know... get to raise Brianna together too. I'm just a softie for Jamie getting to be a hands-on Da to his own bairns!_
> 
> _Thank you so much to @IamNotTrisha and @Outlanderlush for organizing this challenge, and to my darling @fierceweebadger for her STUNNING moodboard. Thanks also to my trusty betas, @desperationandgin and @lcbeauchampoftarth for putting up with my last-minute requests, PER USUAL, haha._
> 
> _This is a dark one, as befits the Faith storyline, but I promise it has a happy ending!_
> 
> _And for those who aren't familiar with the terminology: a "rainbow" baby is one born after a loss._

I knew before Claire did, the second time around. 

I’d known for four days by the time she came home from Tesco with a pregnancy test wedged surreptitiously between the milk and the K-cups. I busied myself with putting away the produce, feigning oblivion while she ferreted the wee pink box into the folds of her cardigan and escaped to the bathroom on the pretense of putting away the toothpaste and body wash. 

When the door clicked shut behind her, I went very still, bone-white hands clenched on the edge of the countertop.

I already knew what the test would show. There was no doubt in my mind at that point. 

I knew my wife’s body better than I knew my own.

Her breasts were an easy tell; she’d whimpered in protest when I probed them — gently, experimentally — while she slept. They were tender, aye, and the nipples a little more full already. The delicate veins along her areola were swollen with the increased blood supply, and as recently as that morning the color had started to deepen, darken. In a few weeks, I knew they’d be the color of champagne grapes. 

At least they had been. Last time.

She had burst into tears the night before over a dog food commercial. She was short with me, quick to snap blazing whisky eyes up to mine and give me a thorough tongue lashing for whatever my perceived error of the moment was.

And perhaps most telling of all: it was the middle of March, there was still a dusting of snow on the ground, and my normally ice-blooded Sassenach was burning up. She kept kicking off the blankets in the middle of the night, scooting away from my body heat unconsciously when I tried to spoon around her. She’d started cracking the window and turning on the ceiling fan before bed, complaining that the bloody thermostat must be broken, because it was “ _sweltering in here_.” 

Aye, I knew. I knew fine well what the test would say.

Apparently, my wife had been less sure. 

When the door to the bathroom creaked slowly open on its hinge, I stood motionless for a moment, watching. Claire stood on the other side of the threshold, just out of sight. 

She didn’t move.

So I did.

I crossed the kitchen in careful, measured strides, gaze trained on that doorway, waiting for the moment I could find her eyes with mine.

When I did, I froze, every muscle in my body drawn taut, every hair follicle standing on end. 

I didn’t breathe — _couldn’t_ — and neither did she. 

Tears stood like diamonds in her eyes, shimmering in the light. She looked up at me helplessly, her chin dimpled and quivering, and put a hand to her mouth to smother a sob. 

I felt a crack through my chest like a gunshot, and then I was moving again, grabbing for her in the same moment that she reached for me. There was nothing soft or tender about the way we collided — clawing, scrambling to get each closer, tighter — frantic and shaking and terrified. 

Fucking _terrified_. 

I buried my face in her hair and opened my mouth to speak, but the words of reassurance my wife needed so desperately to hear lodged in the back of my throat, burning like bile. 

I’d reassured her last time. Promised everything would be alright. 

Clutched her hand, kissed her pale, sweaty brow in the half-second before they took her from me — wheeled her toward the operating theater at a breakneck run while her blood splattered the hospital floor. 

They wouldn’t let me go with her. 

I hadn’t been there when my child was born; sheet-white and lifeless, bundled and set aside while the surgeons worked frantically to stop the hemorrhage and save my wife.

I _had_ been there when Claire woke up in the recovery area, bleary-eyed and blinking slowly. She’d looked at me in confusion, then dragged her eyes around the small curtained area, trying to orient herself. After a moment, realization had dawned on her face, and she’d frowned, wet her dry lips with her tongue, and asked hoarsely where her baby was. 

I’d climbed onto the narrow stretcher beside her and held her while she screamed. 

The nurses didn’t force me to get down when they brought that tiny pale bundle to us to hold. Claire and I huddled together for hours, passing our daughter back and forth. Kissing her, talking to her, singing to her. Stroking her soft wisps of copper hair — _my_ hair. My eyes, too. Claire’s chin and ears and brow. We marveled over her beautiful hands, her delicate fingers, her long, slender feet with toes that looked like perfect wee pearls. 

“This little piggy went to market,” I’d whispered, tracing a fingertip over her first toe. 

For whatever reason, that was the moment Claire and I both dissolved. 

When they took our bairn away to the morgue, my wife had looked up at me with fury boiling like molten gold in her eyes, and demanded to know why they didn’t let her die, too. Why I’d let them save her. She had stopped crying and become cold and still, her jaw set in rage. 

“They should have let me go with her,” she kept saying. “I _want_ to go with her.”

The nurses couldn’t get me out of her bed after that. I held on to Claire for dear life, afraid that if I let her go, she’d will herself to die and slip away too. She was stubborn enough for it. 

We hardly spoke for the three days she remained in hospital. There was nothing to say. I made her eat and drink, helped her up to use the bathroom, shower, and dress. Then we curled up together in bed again, aching and empty and silent. 

We let my sister Jenny make the funeral arrangements. Asked her for something small. Something private, at home. At Lallybroch. 

There had to be a name for the death certificate and the gravestone, she told me on the phone the next afternoon. I pinched a hand over my eyes and told her I’d get back to her. 

We hadn’t decided yet. We hadn’t even known she was a girl. 

In the end, I let my wife choose. Told her she could pick whichever name she thought best. We’d been leaning towards Elizabeth, for Claire’s middle name, or Ellen, to honor my mother. I told her I was fine with either, or neither. Anything.

We buried Ella Faith Fraser on a cold, grey morning one week later. 

Claire and I had knelt together in the freezing mud as the tiny casket was lowered into the ground. We’d stayed there, shaking and crying, hands firmly entwined, long after our family and friends had finished spreading white roses over the wee grave and retreated to the warmth of the reception inside. After a time, Claire had laid down, curled around the plot of earth, and I moved to lay on the other side, facing her, with Ella resting between us for the last time. 

When the heavens opened up and the first scattered raindrops started to fall in heavy plops, I pushed myself up on an elbow, heaved one last great, shuddering sob, kissed my fingertips, then pressed them to the name engraved on the wee stone. 

“Be at peace, _a leannan,”_ I choked. “Yer Da loves ye verra… verra much.” I’d risen shakily and stretched my hands down for Claire, who I knew fine well was still too weak, too fragile to be lingering in the cold and wet for long. 

My wife had looked up at me with empty eyes, then back at the grave, shaking her head. “I can’t leave her here alone, Jamie,” she rasped, so faintly I could barely hear her over the rain.

I’d dropped to one knee beside her, tucked a wet curl behind her ear, and bent to kiss her temple. “She’s not alone, _mo nighean donn,”_ I murmured, pointing to the line of graves extending alongside hers. “My mam and da are here, and my brother Willie. Her great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. A whole clan of Frasers to keep her company, hm?”

“She’s supposed to be with _me,”_ Claire had snapped, her voice breaking.

“I know,” I whispered, fingers still stroking through her tangle of matted hair as the rain picked up speed, beginning to fall in earnest. “I know, _mo ghraidh_. If I could bring her back... trade places wi’ her, I…” 

Shaking her head, she’d brought a cold, pale hand up to cover mine, grasping it tightly to her face. Her eyes squeezed shut, releasing another stream of hot tears against my fingers. 

“I can’t leave her,” she’d rasped again, the desperation of a failing argument creeping in to the edge of her voice. 

“Shh,” I soothed. “I ken. But ye canna stay here, _a nighe_ —”

“And why not?” she’d demanded, setting her chin. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because I canna do this without ye,” I choked out, and her eyes immediately snapped up to mine. My own eyes blurred with tears as I resorted to begging. “Please, Claire. I’m barely… I dinna ken how to do this, either. You are the only thing keeping me standing, and I c—I canna lose you too.”

Her features had crumpled then, but she sat up, wrapping her arms around me and tucking her face into my neck. She hadn’t resisted when I lifted her, cradling her against me. I pressed trembling lips to her hair as her whole body heaved with wrenching sobs.

“Our baby, Jamie,” she gasped over and over as I carried her away from that tiny grave, feeling my heart break with every step. “Our baby...”

Back in the house, I’d bypassed the reception entirely and taken her straight up to our room; helped her change into one of my shirts and her favorite leggings, toweled her hair dry, given her two Benadryl, and tucked her into bed. I held her until she fell asleep, then I changed my clothes, washed my face, and went downstairs with a carefully composed expression to make my obligatory rounds with all the funeral guests.

My mask slipped only once, when a well-meaning elderly female relative had patted my shoulder and assured me that we could always have more children. I felt my godfather’s steadying hand on my shoulder, then released the tension in my jaw and fists, managed a tight smile, and thanked her for coming.

The thought of _more children_ felt like an insult for a long, long time after that.

I didn’t want _other_ children. I wanted Ella. I wanted the bairn who had always kicked up a storm when Claire ate too much sugar, but quieted when I spoke to her, stroked her mam’s belly, and told her to settle down. I wanted my copper-haired, slanted-eyed, pearl-toed lass, the one we’d held for far too brief a time before she was ripped away from us forever. I wanted _her,_ not some substitute child. Somehow, even the thought of another bairn felt like an insult to her. Like we were trying to _replace_ her.

Claire and I never spoke of it, but I could tell by the way she bristled whenever anyone brought up the dreaded “more children” conversation (it seemed to be an epidemic amongst those trying to comfort grieving parents) that she felt the same. 

Her body had been ravaged by the traumatic birth, by her own near-scrape with death, and so I molded myself to her back every night for months, kissed her softly, and nothing more. I left the ball entirely in her court for reinitiating sex, and finally, one unremarkable night in November, she’d turned to me in the middle of the night, stared me in the eye for a long moment, then hitched her leg over my hip, murmuring that she needed me. I pulled her close and groaned appreciatively into her mouth, but continued to let her lead, afraid to hurt her, afraid to frighten her with the intensity of my wanting.

As it turned out, it wouldn’t have been any great problem; she appeared to have been as starved for me as I had been for her.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when we woke entwined and naked and deeply satiated, that it occurred to me that I hadn’t asked her about birth control; if she was on the pill again (I didn’t think so), if she wanted me to pick up condoms from the corner store. 

Or if she was ready to… 

She must have felt the bowstring tension in my chest as she lay across me, because her name was barely past my lips, hesitation dripping from each sound, before she lay a steadying hand over my heart. 

“Let’s just… see what happens,” she whispered. 

I swallowed against a dry throat, nodding. 

Not trying, not preventing. A compromise. 

“Aye,” I whispered back. “All right.”

And for a while, nothing _did_ happen — and not for any lack of enthusiasm on our part. The first two months, Claire seemed relieved each time her bleeding started exactly on time. To be honest, I was relieved, too. I wasn’t sure we were ready; I wasn’t sure we hadn’t jumped the gun too soon. 

But by the third month — by the new year — I noticed the shift in her: the tightening around her eyes and mouth that meant she was quietly disappointed when she asked me to pick up another box of tampons when I went to the supermarket. 

And as I picked up the box of Kotex and threw it into the cart later that evening, I’d glanced over at the pregnancy tests across the aisle, and felt a wee twinge of regret myself. 

By the fourth month, Claire’s eyes had sparkled briefly with a film of tears when she emerged from the bathroom and shook her head no at me. I kissed her forehead, and she’d nuzzled into me for a moment before taking a sharp breath, pulling away, and asking me to start chopping onions and garlic for supper. 

And here we were, a month later, in the same spot in the kitchen… terrified. 

Hopeful. 

Terrified of being hopeful. 

Because everything might be alright this time. We could be holding our bairn — a healthy, living, breathing bairn — in eight months’ time. 

Or we could be kneeling before another tiny grave next to Ella’s, shattered beyond any hope of repair. 

And there was simply no way of knowing which outcome it would be. 

So I held my wife tight against me, and I shook like a leaf, and I prayed. 

With everything in me, I prayed.

_Lord, that she may be safe. She and the child._

Over and over and over and over… 

* * *

Claire stirred before I heard it; she seemed to have a sixth sense that somehow eluded me. I felt a bead of warmth pooling in the palm I had cradled over her breast, and a trickle of milk dribbled down my hand as she rolled away with a creak of the mattress. 

“Don’t get up,” she instructed me, her voice groggy with sleep. “I’ve got her.”

I rolled my eyes as I flicked on my side table lamp and got up anyway. Why she still bothered trying to get me to sleep through the nighttime feedings was beyond me.

My wife let out a huff of a laugh when she saw me trudging half-asleep through the nursery door right behind her, shaking her head in disbelief. 

“You used to love your sleep,” she commented as she lifted our grunting, wriggling daughter from her crib. I came to stand beside her in my designated spot at the changing table, pulling out the assembly line of hand sanitizer, nappies (two, in case our feisty wee lass chose to take a piss or poo while I was changing the first one, as she was wont to do), wipes, Desitin.

“Aye,” I agreed, taking my pink-faced, rooting child from her mother’s arms and kissing the tip of her wee nose. “But I love _this_ more.”

Claire’s expression was so tender she looked for a moment as though she might cry. Smiling from ear to ear, she eased down into the rocking chair in the corner of the nursery and put her feet up on the ottoman, watching quietly as I went about my routine with the bairn. 

After I unswaddled her, I gave her my pinkie to suck on so that she wouldn’t scream while I went about the business of undoing the umpteen million wee snaps down the front of her outfit with my free hand. I’d gotten very good at the clean-nappy tuck, unfastening of the dirty one, one-handed wipe (front to back, always), and rolling the soiled one out of the way before I had to snatch my other hand back from my ravenous wee daughter, much to her outrage. 

Then the singing began, in a vain, off-key attempt to pacify her while I finished the rest of nappy duty and snapped her back up again.

 _Ohhhh my wee Brianna Ellen,  
_ _The bonniest wee melon,  
_ _Yer nappy is a stinky one,  
_ _Och aye, ye’ve got some stinky buns  
_ _So we wash and we scrub_  
 _And we go off to your mum  
_ _And it’s time_ (a pause for a kiss to her belly) - _to -_ (another kiss to her neck) _eat!_

She was a tough crowd, and only keen for the eating bit at the end, but I kept it up all the same.

It amused Claire, anyway. Though she rolled her eyes every time, they sparkled with mirth, crinkling softly around the edges. She grinned at me and called me an idiot as she put our daughter to breast.

“Mmphm,” I agreed, pecking her on the lips. Her mouth curved into a smile against mine, and she hummed happily as I kissed her again. “And now…” I kissed her a third and final time, then bent to kiss the soft red fuzz on our daughter’s head. “Yer embarrassing eejit of a Da is going back to bed, _m’annsachd._ I’ll see ye in about two and a half hours for yer encore, mm? Mebbe I’ll sing the _wee potato_ version next time.”

“Oh, she much prefers the wee potato version,” Claire mocked me. “Less fuss about being stinky, more carrying on about her chunky thighs.”

“She works _hard_ on those chunky thighs,” I reminded her, reaching down to gently squeeze a doughy leg. “She’s a bonnie wee eater, aren’t ye, _a leannan?”_

Brianna proceeded to ignore us both in favor of suckling ravenously, thus proving my point. 

I gestured to her in triumph, earned a smile and a head-shake from Claire, and began to retreat to our bedroom, giving mother and bairn their private bonding time. 

My wife’s voice stopped me just as I was about to step out of the nursery.

“Jamie.”

I looked over my shoulder, ready to step back in to hand Claire her mobile or water bottle or whatever else she might have forgotten in her haste to get to our hungry child.

The expression of unspeakable tenderness had settled over her face again, and I felt my own features softening in response. For a while we simply stared at one another in silence. 

Knowing. Understanding.

Entire conversations passed unspoken between us before she whispered, “Thank you.”

I was moving back toward her again before I recognized it, drawn like a magnet to its pole. I knelt beside her, tucking her hair behind her ear. “For what? _”_ I asked softly.

“This,” she breathed, her eyes moving around the room before settling on our daughter’s face. “Her.”

I dropped my forehead to Claire’s, closing my eyes for a long moment, breathing in the scent of baby lotion and breast milk and my wife’s perfume and a unique, delicate smell that I had come to recognize as my own child’s. 

_Our_ child’s.

“She is a gift,” I murmured, pulling back just far enough to meet my wife’s eyes. “From me to you.” I leaned in to kiss her gently on the lips. “And you... to me.” A lump started to rise in my throat, and I swallowed hard against it as I reached up to brush the pad of my thumb over her cheekbone. “Both of our girls, Claire.” 

Her eyes swam with tears then, but her smile didn’t falter. 

“Yes,” she whispered, nodding. “Both of them.”


End file.
